Listen up! Spotify is now on Windows Phone 8

The timing could not be better. Yesterday my wife received her shiny new Nokia Lumia 822 and today she can now use it to play music from the streaming service Spotify. Oh, she probably will not because, not her thing, but she could, and that is the important thing because the option was not available to her, or any other Windows Phone 8 customers, yesterday.

Today Microsoft's Michael Stroh proudly announces that Spotify has now found a home in the Windows Phone Store. The app is still in beta, which means users may experience a bit of a hiccup here and there, but customers can "instantly increases the size of your music library by millions of tracks, making it easy to discover new songs and artists. You can create your own playlists, or browse and indulge in the ones your friends put together". It also features the ability to download playlists to your handset for listening at times when you are not within range of a connection. Tracks added from the phone app also show on your computer.

The app is free. The service, however, will only be free during your 30-day trial. After that, you will need to cough up $9.99 per month to continue using it. If not, then your feature set will be limited, as it is for other mobile platforms.

Spotify, however, is on par with rival services price-wise -- in fact, the same exact price that Microsoft charged for its own Zune service, which is now Xbox Music. Others, like rdio, also charge that $9.99 fee -- it seems to be the sweet spot. However, given its popularity, many customers may already pay for a premium Spotify account on their PC, making this a good deal for when moving from the desktop to the mobile environment.